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Thomas Grimball Prioleau, Professor of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women & Infants
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Thomas Grimball Prioleau was born in Charleston in 1786 and was the son of Captain Philip Gendron Prioleau. The Prioleau family were among the first French Huguenot families to emigrate to Charleston following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and his great-great-great grandfather, Reverend Elias Prioleau, established the French Huguenot Church. He completed his medical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His dissertation explored the use of
Aralia Spinosa
, or Devil’s Walkingstick. Upon his return to Charleston, Prioleau served as an attending physician at the Charleston Dispensary through 1813 and also established his own office, opening a practice on Queen Street by 1814. He joined the Medical Society of South Carolina on August 1, 1808.
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In late 1822, Prioleau was a member of the committee that ultimately drafted the appeal to the state legislature to sanction a medical school in the city of Charleston (the very one delivered by Stephen Elliott). Prioleau was unanimously elected to the professorship of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Infants in April 1824, a position he held for forty-three years,
and was subsequently elected the first dean of the Medical College by his colleagues.
and was subsequently elected the first dean of the Medical College by his colleagues.
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In 1838, Prioleau purchased Bonneau Ferry plantation in Berkeley County from Floride Calhoun and renamed it Prioli. In November 1848, he became a founding member of the Society for the Relief of the Families of Deceased and Disabled Indigent Members of the Medical Profession of the State of South Carolina, a charitable society. At the time of the 1860 census, Prioleau’s real estate was valued at $55,000 and personal property, including enslaved persons, at $8,000.
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When the Medical College of the State of South Carolina reopened in 1865 following the Civil War, Prioleau resumed his seat on faculty as Professor of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children. Prioleau died on October 4, 1876 at the age of 89, having practiced medicine for sixty-eight years. He is buried at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Charleston.
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(Image Description: Lecture Ticket. Waring Historical Library, Manuscript Collection, MSS 31.)